44 Landfill

With Circus' abrupt failure to kill the disruptive cat, Coil was left conflicted on his next course of action. He'd thought sniping him during the chaotic gang brawl was enough, the Tinker-tech weaponry should very well have liquified his internal organs, rendering most methods of regeneration and healing void.

Except that wasn't what happened, they somehow survived and decided to pick a fight with Lung. This wouldn't have been a negative situation had the cat simply died, but instead it was Lung that was captured. Without the Dragon of Kyushu leading the ABB the gang was approaching a fast dismantlement, worse, the vacuum of power allowed the Empire to gain much territory, subsuming the previously ABB-reliant businesses into their own 'empire'.

Without the ABB the only groups who could challenge the Empire were the Merchants(Which were somehow even more fracturous than the ABB currently is), Faultline's crew of Case 53 freaks, or his own group of course...

He wasn't willing to commit his full resources towards a now unstable goal without assurances, and as the cat still lived to suppress and distort his power, attempting to seize control now was a fool's errand.

Thus, he decided to use his new group of recruits calling themselves the Undersiders. They were kids, but with Tattletale at the helm they'd likely be as efficient as any special forces group you may find, if vastly less disciplined.

He'd hoped to use her power to uncover a means to deal with Kaibyo, but all that did was reveal the cat's apparent Thinker-immunity. The moment the girl tried to infer information about him she was struck by the most violent Thinker headache he'd ever bore witness to. Blood spewed from her eyes and nose, and if he wasn't using a parallel line she'd likely be out of commission for a long, long time.

Coil releases a long sigh, it's just what he needed, one of the only capes immune to his powers arriving in HIS city, mere months before he enacted his grand plans. Regardless, he couldn't let it all fail now. The Undersiders would begin working to seize territory from what was left of the ABB, and cut out a portion of the city for themselves to begin expansion.

They'd not be enough, he knew, but with his and Tattletale's powers working in conjunction, he could at the very least determine where the cat would be, and how to avoid his influence for the time being...

"Why do the worst things happen to the best people?" he sarcastically mutters to himself.

-------------------------

POV Kieu :

The hideout he and Sherrel were using wasn't the prettiest, but the fact only dung beetles and the most cracked-out junkies would willingly enter it gave a large degree of anonymity. It was essentially a ransacked office building placed directly next to an abandoned landfill on the outskirts of the city. Likely owned by a gang that stayed until they couldn't bear living next to the landfill any longer.

The smell was hell for my enhanced senses, but the shitload of scrap metal and electronics was too valuable for Sherrel to pass up. It'd only been a day since the Lung incident and she was quickly turning her regularly modified Volkswagen GTI into a Tinker-modified one.

This was Sherrel's true power as a vehicle Tinker, it seemed that making explosive RC cars had been stifling to her, as she'd been in an almost continuous Tinker fugue since they'd determined that they were safe.

The weapons she'd already installed on the Volkswagen looked like some shit from Mad Max, or the cheap, Australian version of 007. The wheels could extend small incredibly hot flame throwers that melted rubber in around a second, metal took longer but they were designed to disable other vehicles.

The headlights could act as sudden flashbangs, going so bright that blindless was definitely a risk to regular people. Under those were machine guns, and while they were low caliber, they were only due to Sherrel's lack of proper materials and resources, along with her relative inexperience with Tinkering.

The last thing she'd installed was an honest-to-good Nitrous tank... No, not just the regular 'faster button oxygen injector' but something matching what you saw in video games. I'm not entirely sure how she did it but there was no point in thinking about it, it was Black Boxed Tinker-tech, after all.

I kept an eye on her from a nearby bench while practicing my new magic... To put my experience simply, it was both harder and easier than expected. With my Demon/Nekomata physiology I was already able to channel magic better than most Magi, and now that I had some 'programs' to use I could perform the spells on my first try.

That said 'using' and 'using well' were two very different statements, at least in regards to me. My first attempt to use Structural Grasp on an apple caused it to explode like you'd expect when Reinforcing an object too much. Channeling too much magic quickly became a common problem, as while I could use Structural Grasp and Reinforcement on metal and some wooden objects, more delicate things like food and unenhanced flesh tended to... Fall apart under my power.

Another thing to note is the fact that Structural Grasp gave me something akin to a Thinker-headache if I used it too much too quickly. The first time it occurred was when I tried the spell on the whole office building. Calling it mental overload would be putting it lightly, I was lucky I had regenerative abilities otherwise I'd probably be suffering permanent brain damage from my reckless attempt.

Reinforcement was easier to use and came to me more naturally. I was primarily using it to Reinforce my body simply due to how durable I was. Reinforcing separate organs like my heart, eyes, or brain was still a no-go, but with enough practice I'm sure I'd get it down. Even with my apparent talent for this spell, however, I'd accidentally 'exploded' one of my fingers when trying a 'Deku Flick' from My Hero Academia. It healed quickly enough, but now I knew whereabouts my current limit was.

Last and certainly the most difficult was Projection. Since my Structural Grasp only worked on more durable objects, those were what I could Project. I'd gotten metal bars down quickly enough but when I moved onto metal pipes I'd sometimes end up with a 'flaccid' pipe... Jokes aside, I could now Project kitchen knives relatively well, even if they all came out incredibly dull. Just another thing to practice, I supposed.

The less said about my efforts to control my new Time affinity the better. I'd have probably been better off picking something like fire, but I assured myself that I'd picked a late-game ability...

"Uugh...." I blink as Sherrel groans and slumps onto the bench next to me, her hands, clothes, and hair covered in motor oil and other disgusting scents she'd picked up digging through the landfill. Despite how dirty and exhausted she looked, her expression was one you'd see in porn on women after an hours-long gangbang...

"Erm... Enjoy yourself?" I slowly asked, unsure what she was experiencing.

It takes a moment for her to respond, but after seven or so seconds she turns her head with a satisfied smile and nods. "Feels like I got my brains fucked out after a ten-year-long dry spell."

"Ah... Something to do with being a Tinker then?" I questioned.

"Something like that. It's hard to describe for non-Tinkers but there's like, a constant pressure in the back of my head whenever I'm not actively making something. Even Tinkering under the ABB hadn't fixed it because I was holding myself back... It was like being denied an orgasm for weeks!" she exclaims, only to blush when she looks at me, "Uh, I shouldn't be saying this stuff in front of a kid..."

I shrug, "You're talking to a former-ABB cape. I'm probably more experienced in this stuff than sex workers at this point. Most people don't even acknowledge that smut and rape exist, let alone having to be around it."

"I-, guess you're right... It's been rough, hasn't it?"

"For both of us. You're free now, but I still have some things to finish."

"Your mom?"

I nod and release a sigh, "Yeah, my plan after breaking her out from PRT custody is sending her off to what's left of her family in Vietnam. The country's a shithole but it's safer than being near me."

"How're you going to get her out of the country? They control the airports don't they?"

"They do but she'd not important enough for them to follow her through Mexico and into Brazil. She'll get a flight from there, it's not like I can't afford it." I mutter the last part. With Canary headed for the birdcage my passive income would probably drop to zero, no one wants to sell stuff from a known Master, and it isn't like the underground scene that'd form would pay me dividends anyway.

"Sounds like a plan, I 'spose..." she tiredly remarks.

...

With that line of conversation over I return to my Magecraft. Channeling prana/mana/whatever the fuck they wanna call it through my arm and into my hand, blue circuit-like lines ran across my skin, illuminating the immediate area in a dull turquoise. "Projection." I whisper, the real name of the technique was usually called' Gradation Air, due to the object existing on a time limit before disappearing.

I'd come to a realization however, that my version, while not technically different, was functionally far better... The reason for this? Well, in Fate the world was a living, breathing being. It was alive with its own mind, and own interpretation on how reality should run. It impresses it's own reality onto everything and everyone.

Gradation Air essentially forces an object from your mind into reality, powering its existence with mana to resist the world's reality where it didn't truly exist.

But! What would happen if the world wasn't alive? What would happen if the world couldn't resist the Projected object's existence?

Blue particles coalesced atop my hand, arranging themselves into the shape of a kitchen knife, one I'd found in the landfill. Like it, my Projected knife had every imperfection, and spots of rust the original did. I wasn't skilled enough to modify my Projections yet, and doing so would take a long time to figure out.

The Projections were relatively fragile due to them being solely comprised of magic, damaging them too much would cause the spell to break down. This knife for example would vanish if it got even a single chip.

Unlike Shirou or any other Magus from Fate though, my Projections didn't degrade with time. They weren't on a time limit. Without Gaia fucking with me, my magic was more efficient in every regard, and only had to function according to my own reality.

Hell, if I ever managed to create a Reality Marble, I was sure I'd be able to activate it without cost, and its range would basically be infinite... It'd compass the entire earth.

I twirl the knife in my hand, that was just personal conjecture though. I wasn't sure exactly how reality marbles worked, nor did I know what would happen if one was activated in this world.

"New ability?" Sherrel asks, intrigued by my strange new powers.

"Yeah, I think it's something like Miss Militia's power, but broader and more difficult. I can create objects out of nothing, but I need to be really familiar with them. They'll always just be copies too, never better." I say in a half-lie. While copies of objects would never be better, when I learned how to modify my Projections the sky would be the limit.

"Hm... Any object?" slowly asked.

"I think? With some effort."

"Think you could create Tinker tech?"

...

Now, that is the question, isn't it?